VATUSA Event Suggesstion

[John Speranza 908835]

Hey guys...

 

Ok, i know that it is very hard to plan an event, but I think i've got an idea for a good one, that will DEFINATELY draw traffic for ATC's (who doesn't like a challenege?)

 

How about we have all the ARTCC's manned in the USA for a certian period of time. We might even possibly get some TRACON and Tower stations manned. This would also include oceanic centers like NY Oceanic, and OAK Oceanic...

 

I don't expect this to be in the works, like, next weekend, but I think it's a good idea to get publicity for VATSIM and draw LOADS of traffic all around the US, and possibly from overseas. Who knows, maybe we could even give our friends as VATCAN and VATMEX a call?

 

I cannot see anything bad coming out of this, besides lots of traffic. But, as we have learned from the JAX flyin a few weeks ago, the clients and servers can handle it.

 

 

Ideas? Suggesstions? I think this would be very fun for both ATC's, controllers, and the like.

 

To quote microsoft, lets make it "as real as it gets"

 

John Speranza

VATSIM/908835

[Fred Clausen]

We've done this before. Wasn't that interesting. More pilots were on in the USA as I recall, but they all flowed predictably to the more popular ARTCCs.

[John Speranza 908835]

Hmmm.... That's interesting...

 

Ok, so how about a revised plan? How about all the CTR's are manned; that way we can have both ATC services for enroute as well as departing/arriving traffic. However, the more popular centers will have somthing a little extra....

 

Example: Kansas City Center; not a very popular center to arrive in/depart from. However, it is full with enroute traffic. So, we have the center manned.

Example 2: New York Center: very popular for arrivals/departures. So, in addition to the center being manned, we could have NY APP, as well as JFK, LGA, and EWR tower.

 

So, what Im saying is that the centers handle all enroute traffic, and smaller airport traffic where SOME pilots will be arriving/departing; and where there is no local approach controller or tower.

 

As oppose to, in a few centers, ZDC, ZNY, ZLA, ZOA, ZDV, and ZBW all come to mind (just at first glance), we could have approach/departure positions manned, and possibly a tower.

 

 

John Speranza

VATSIM/908835

[Jason Harris 877712]

John,

 

Great suggestions but, FYI, it's pretty disheartening to sit online just to man other ARTCC's enroute traffic. Not to say enroute controlling can't be exciting but just taking a hand off and then waiting about 1 hour to just then hand that a/c off to another sector that is getting the arrival doesn't do much to draw ATC. Great for pilots, though, no doubt about that. Would love to know that on a certain day I'd have enroute ATC the whole way

[Nicholas Fredrich 827138]

Staff it and they will come!

[Fred Clausen]

Staff it and they will come!

 

Sort of. I've staffed ZAB a lot for months and while they do come, it isn't like other ARTCCs that don't staff up nearly as much. I can look on big name ARTCCs who seem to have double the traffic I have, and they nave no controllers online.

 

So staffing up helps, but only so much.

[Jason Harris 877712]

Staff it and they will come!

 

 

 

I wish! One of our last events we had easily 8 or 9 controllers on for 4 hours and had about 20 a/c come. Now ( and not a knock against them ) one of the Florida ARTCC's had the superbowl event and drew hundreds of a/c with (when I checked) only 4 controllers. I think that another important part of good turn out is "location, location, location".

[Fred Clausen]

I think that another important part of good turn out is "location, location, location".

 

Yea, I would have to agree.

[Nicholas Fredrich 827138]

Then I would ask you the following..... how can I staff every TRACON in a 4 month period in the Chicago ARTCC and attract traffic everytime I'm online?

 

Quality brings quantity! staff it and they will come. Maybe the "slower" "more popular" or what have you ARTCCs need to offer something more. Some of these "not so popular" ARTCCs have amazing scenery... maybe you can use that as a tool to attract your aircraft. Another thing you can do is contact the events individuals with various VA's and organize fly-ins.

 

I have found in my 3 years with VATSIM the best way to attract pilots is have a facility staffed from GND to CTR with most (if not all) with voice.

 

My $0.04

[Andre Koch 852831]

with most (if not all) with voice.

Oh yeah, definitely w/ voice. This may not sound nice, but personally I avoid controllers who are not on voice. There´s not much I hate more than typing while I am flying.

[Norman Blackburn]

For me I fly. If there is ATC then its a bonus. I certainly wouldn't avoid a controller because of his lack of voice.

 

I recall one North American controller who I have not seen for a while whose atis read receiving voice, sending text so from a pilot's perspective the workload wasn't increased.

[Craig Moulton]

I recall one North American controller who I have not seen for a while whose atis read receiving voice, sending text so from a pilot's perspective the workload wasn't increased.

 

 

That would be Keith Smith, who is now a member of ZLA and our new Events Coordinator. He does a great job keeping up. He must either have an AWESOME alias file, else he is a very accomplished typist!

[Pablo Norambuena 857610]

He told me he moslty just typed, some were used by the alias, thats just a good way to practice making your keyboard skills much better eh

[Ian Elchitz 810151]

Back when I controlled alot (before my son arrived and changed life as I knew it) I often was voice receive only while controlling Los Angeles center in to the wee hours of the North American night.

 

If it was in the past 8 months than it had to be Keith Smith. It's been at least that long since I hit the scopes - in any event my ATIS when doing that was always:

 

"Voice receive only... You Talk, I Type."

[Nicholas Fredrich 827138]

wouldn't it be great if every pilot added /t/ /r/ or /v/ to thier flightplan??

[Ian Elchitz 810151]

wouldn't it be great if every pilot added /t/ /r/ or /v/ to thier flightplan??

 

This should no longer be a problem with the release of SB3.

[Owen Catherwood 903683]

I also have been doing the sending text only thing whenever I'm in a location where the noise would make it hard to hear me, or I need to be quiet, expecially on Tuseday/Thursdays.

[Brad Littlejohn]

I'm gonna touch on a couple of things already mentioned in this thread. I have to applaud any controller who uses text to control heavy amounts of traffic. Not only because I feel their pain (I started controlling in the SATCO days when you needed to be S3 to use voice, and ranks started at S1 and S2), but because I've been there and done it. I controlled SOCAL Approach as an S1 at the tail end of the first California Screamin'. and did it totally by text, with aliases and typing. I still would love to challenge someone who had used and known nothing but voice to try a major event with only text, and see how they fare!

 

Secondly, with traffic, little used sectors, and location... I know what everyone means, and feel their pain. There will always be popular locations to fly to, because they're popular. The key is to make those little travelled popular too. Take Vegas. Nice airport, very complicated traffic patterns. Scenery enhanced. people are going to fly there because it's Vegas. Now.. take Omaha (Sorry Jason, have to. I was born and raised there! ).. it's in the middle of the country and flat. What could be done to make OMA attractive to pilots, outside of major staffing? events? characteristics of the town? what goes on there? May help.. College World Series is there, so an event based on that could happen. just an example..

 

I've been taking to flying to lesser used fields lately.. places like back home to OMA, LNK, RAP, BOI, GTF, HLN, MLI, and the like, just because the more frequently flown places, I've done before. Time to try something new.. Perhaps scheduling an event around the lesser used fields will attract pilots to those fields.. and perhaps learn something new about flying to them, getting in/out of them.. and get them to frequent them more..

 

Just some thoughts..

 

BL.

[Jason Harris 877712]

Brad,

 

Thank you for the constructive feedback. I love the idea for a College World Series fly-in BTW, went to undergrad in Helena, MT (HLN) and visited Great Falls, MT (GTF) many times in real life. If you want a fun mountain airport to fly into (small twin engine a/c mostly) you should try Sandpoint, Idaho (KSZT). Mountain with a ski resort on one side of the runway and a large lake (Lake Pend O'reille) on the other

 

The ski resort is on the right (west and slightly north and you can't see it in this picture ) and you can see the northern most part of the lake were it is feeding into the Pend O'reille river going west (it's shaped like a question mark). It's were I'm originally from and just a short hop from Spokane, WA (KGEG)!

Here's a shot looking north so you can see the mountain with the ski resort (Schwietzer Mountain). The airport is in the top right of the picture; so you can see you the west side of the runway is very close to the moutains!

 

[Craig Merriman 834118]

How about we have all the ARTCC's manned in the USA for a certian period of time. We might even possibly get some TRACON and Tower stations manned. This would also include oceanic centers like NY Oceanic, and OAK Oceanic...

 

We tried this last year, actually had 85% of the US Centers with at least center on. The discussion we had among the events guys was pretty good around the topic and maybe we'll try it again in the future. You'll usually get a better overall response from focused events though.

[Keith Smith]

Staffing up the entire USA isn't likely to be worthwhile for everyone, and here's why....the number of pilots who show up, combined with the m[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ive area covered by the event results in one of two situations...

 

1) traffic is very thinly spread over a wide area, with most controllers being very lightly utilized

 

OR

 

2) the 'popular' ARTCC's get hammered, and the other ARTCC's are twiddling their thumbs.

 

The goal of an event, IMHO is to get a _good_ (not insane) amount of traffic into a reasonably concentrated area. This makes it fun for the pilots and controllers, as there's a real sense that you're working in a well-designed system. What's the point of a 5 hour event covering all the ARTCC's? How many of those controllers is a single pilot going to interact with in those 5 hours?

 

The person who pointed out that handling overflights can be dull is 100% right. Unless you have a m[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ive stream of traffic, there's pretty much nothing to do up there

 

It also takes a lot of coordination to fire up a country-wide event.

 

To the ppl who have said "staff it and they will come"...my experience has been that over the long-term, that may be true. I worked OAK_CTR pretty consistently, every day, for months at a time...and saw a gradual increase in day time traffic (on the whole). It's a subjective judgement, to be sure, but there it is.

 

And lastly, yes, I'm the guy who was sending text and receiving voice due to my location. I tend to not log on as much as I used to due to work related reasons, but I hope to be working CTR in a little while at the new ARTCC (ZLA), doing my part to attract more traffic.

 

My 'alias' file wasn't awesome, but it was good for standard IFR, take off, and ldg clearances. Everything else was hand typed. I type around 110wpm on a good day, that probably helps

 

Keith

[Chanse Watson 834810]

I usually type everything out. Did so during the last Cal Scream working both North and South ground at LAX. It helps being around computers for five or six years now, even more. Though, I'm slowly creating my own alias file (Progress- http://tfrclan.net/ZLA/alias.txt ) because during big events as the CS Series, it can get pretty tough at times.

[Mark Polston 810032]

My 2 cents,

 

As far as staffing goes, I think pilots who are desciding where to fly during an event look for the coverage. We all know that the major ARTCCs get the most traffic by default. Sure if NY is staffed, pilots will definatley show, but if an ARTCC that has a lesser amount of overall traffic, but is also staffed more adequatley, will draw the most traffic. I also agree with the phrase of 'if you staff it, they will come.' As long as you provide good and continuous service in your ARTCC, you will get more traffic over time. We could analyze data and make pie charts and bar graphs to see what were talking about but over all the concept has always and will continue to work.

 

So I think overall the event is a good idea, but ultimatley the traffic will be drawn to whoever is staffed the most. You could almost turn the idea of the event into a 'control-a-thon' to see which ARTCC can staff up the most for the longest period of time.

[Fred Clausen]

Mark,

 

As a member of an ARTCC that isn't counted as a major traffic drawing ARTCC, I can't agree with your post. The 'if you staff it they will come' is the biggest lie we tell ourselves. I have, along with other controllers in my ARTCC, staffed ZAB very consistently during the last 9 or so months. We have seen an increased level of traffic, but in terms of proportions of increase, it is negligiable to the time put in by myself and the other controllers. Myself, I have 800 or so hours in ZAB (not counting my OBS and time spent controlling as a visitor), with better than half of that spent on a center spot. That is 800 hours in a very short time span, and the inrease in traffic we have is probably more due to the very successful Exec Jet VA Ernie Alston started then to my and everyone else's staffing.

 

And even with the traffic increase, we can still look at major players, like ZLA and ZNY who don't have controllers on for a significant portion of the day, and yet they out draw ARTCCs who do very well staffing like ZAB and Memphis. The simple fact is a lot of the guys online are flying VA routes, and VAs have hubs in the SoCal region, the New York region, and probably Atlanta and Miami. These VA guys don't have hubs in places like Albuquerque, Pheonix, Seattle, or Minnepolis-Saint Paul. In fact, these VAs probably don't have more than a route or two to some of these ARTCCs. And if the VA pilots are flying there VA routes, then they will fly where there hubs are, and where the fun routes are. ATC consideration doesn't even come to play when your doing that kind of flying. VA's are the unconsidered trump card here, because it generally seems, at least the pilots who go through my airspace, are flying VA routes. Very few pilots pick a place to fly based on controlling.

 

The one thing I can agree with in your post is a control a thon, although the logistics of pulling something like that off might be too difficult.

[Mark Polston 810032]

Fred,

 

I understand where your coming from. I've done a lot of controlling in the midwest in places such as ZID and ZOB, and at times I felt like working on my tax return being so bored. I also agree with your undestanding of VA routes and how they affect traffic in an ARTCC. Obviously yes, they do play a major role in traffic flow, but its not 100% of the pot. However, you must agree that staffing has to be atleast affecting traffic by some means. Right now, at 20:40z I counted 37 planes in ZAB (via servinfo). Thats right on par with ZLA, ZTL and ZNY's traffic numbers. But, if you guys aren't manning the positions, I can guarentee you that you wouldn't have seen as much traffic. I also have to oppose your statement of "We have seen an increased level of traffic, but in terms of proportions of increase, it is negligiable to the time put in by myself and the other controllers." Well, you have to take what you can get. As long as there is an increase of traffic, thats something that makes your controlling time worth it, and over time, it will continue to increase. Also you said " Very few pilots pick a place to fly based on controlling" Unless I'm flying a VA [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ignment route, I'm definatley going to look to see whos staffed up. Because what makes a fun route to fly, is being able to fly with ATC guiding you in to your destination. Thats a major portion of the releasim of flightsim.

 

I'm not trying to by anymeans to ridicule your opinion of how things work. All I'm saying is, there is room for the little guy - smaller ARTCCs within VATUSA that can compete with the big-boy ARTCCs. One in particular that I have noticed is ZME. For the last week and a half they have staffed up CTR-APP-TWR and other approaches within the ARTCC and I have seen an increase of departures from our ARTCC to theirs. So, as we continue to improve our staffing, traffic numbers will become larger.